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Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

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Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#161

Post by swiftcoder »

The big 10 tech companies pretty much exclusively hire junior devs. At the scale Amazon, Facebook, etc are hiring, they have no choice but to primarily recruit folks straight out of university.

That said, unless you are currently attending a top computer science school, you can be forgiven for not knowing this. Junior positions aren't really advertised outside of college recruiting trips.

I'm only aware of a single major tech firm (Netflix) that is philosophically opposed to hiring junior developers.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#162

Post by VvR-Ox »

1. It's expensive 2. You don't know the result (he will be the work force you need for the price you want) 3. There is certain other risks like the junior goes away when he had the training because there is another company that pays more (there is allways that other company where roses are more red) 4. Why should there be training when all the people in CS are ok doing training for free at home? Hell, there is even Hackathons that are used to get creative ideas and real work done in no time for no money (nope, all the catering, fancy prices and lousy shirts didn't cost the same it would've with some senior dev's)

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#163

Post by freewilly1040 »

aphextron wrote: post #36
dharmab wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured.

>Don't quit your job without your next source of income secured. I guess this is the takeaway from a self preservation standpoint, but the alternative is worse. Spending months of your employer's time completely mentally checked out, taking sick time and vacation for interviews, pretending like you care in meetings, it's all too much. I watched that happen multiple times before I left, and it's really discourteous to…

You do not owe your employer your true heart and soul. You exchange your services for money. If you are holding to that agreement you should not feel guilty about doing what is best for yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#164

Post by fooker »

coder543 wrote: post #116
rorykoehler wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't reflected in the wages which are terrible in Europe compared to the US.

Economies aren't that simple.

Ok then, can you explain why wages for programming jobs are low-ish in Europe even when there is, apparently, a shortage?

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#165

Post by thisisit »

My experience has been that many manager want to run or at least pretend to run a tight ship. So, they would rather splurge on finding that awesome-senior-dev than train people from scratch.

Though this seems odd, it tends to give hiring managers some sense of security when they report to their superiors. They'd rather say:

I have X who has Y years of experience in Z framework

than

I have X who has zero experience in Z and we are going to train them.

It is like Kanehman's certainty effect. They'd rather be certain of competence than bet on the fact that you might be trained to be competent.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#166

Post by fooker »

systemBuilder wrote: post #62
rubicon33 wrote: post #12

False premise. There is no shortage of devs. That has been a complete fabrication, made up entirely by big tech companies, in a propaganda push to promote more and more people getting into CS. It's entirely so they can pay developers less.

I agree. There is zero shortage of developers. I just left Google search. There, all the Dev's are PhDs and will drop everything to fix a non user facing problem at midnight or 1am. They all answer their pagers about it. There is no shortage of Dev's ... but ... these companies are looking for H1B slaves who work 24/7 and 60h a week times 7y of indentured servitude. There certainly is a shortage of Uncle Tom's willin…

Wow, I would not want to work with this person!

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#167

Post by sgarman »

pandler wrote: post #139
oh-kumudo wrote: post #103

I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…

I had a conversation the other day with some work colleagues where we were talking about a friends dad who just retired from working as an engineer at AT&T for something like 35 years. We made some jokes about how that would be unthinkable these days and the conversation moved on. Loyalty goes both ways. If you want someone to stick around, incentivize them to.

That's hard to do at a startup though with FANG salaries and benefits being so extreme. You really have to double down on the value prop of small agile teams, culture etc. Even if you nail that it's hard to turn down 2-3x salaries.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#168

Post by jib »

sheepmullet wrote: post #156
jib wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prisoners dilemma. New guys are expensive (especially in time), experienced guys are valuable. If I spend a bunch of money/time on new guys I have less to spend on experienced guys compared to the company that just spends it on experienced guys. So, the companies that don’t train new can pay experienced more, thus getting the experienced guys.

> If I spend a bunch of money/time on new guys I have less to spend on experienced guys compared to the company that just spends it on experienced guys. That is the theory - in practice it is a bit different. It takes a lot longer to become a senior who can easily switch business domains and tech stacks than it does to skill up in a single business domain and tech stack combo. Two years in house is easily comparable…

For sure. Just saying that I think that is the argument.

Our team is about 70% guys who learnt from scratch on the job I think. We have very low turnover, and you don’t come to us if you’re chasing max compensation anyway, so we do not have those problems as much (we don’t pay bad, but you can certainly make more other places).

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#169

Post by oh-kumudo »

ivansavz wrote: post #118
oh-kumudo wrote: post #103

I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…

A friend of mine runs a web dev shop and I have seen him train at least six people from zero-to-pro (very smart, fast learners with a math background) and what you described is exactly what happens. Once they become medium/advanced-level proficient they often quit and move on to other, bigger companies. If there was some formal, or informal understanding that candidates "trained on the job" would stay for a few years…

Realistically it will work only when the job market liquidity is low.

Think of Japan, where changing job is like a lifetime event, training is graciously provided, since the firm assumed that your loyalty is guaranteed. Or in case of some companies in China, where they can sue you if you quit your job before the agreed years are met on your contract. Both seems undesirable to me personally.

Re: Ask HN: Why not more hiring of junior devs, then on-the-job-training?

#170

Post by tempestn »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #140
tempestn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'd say the latter. Finding the max element in a list is an extremely straightforward thing to code; if someone can't do that, it's almost certain they're going to be lacking in a lot of other ways as well. Of course it's not the only thing you would check, but it would make for an easy early filter (which, unfortunately but conveniently, would probably weed out the majority of your resumes).

Fizzbuz removed us 90% of potential hires and saved a lot of money in cutting interview short. Granted this is a rural area and ymmv depending on the local average skill level, but still if you want to grade someone from zero to ten you need to start with exercisers close to zero. Otoh if your interview questions are all 9 or 10 in difficulty most of your candidate will fail them and you'll have no data for a decisio…

> Otoh if your interview questions are all 9 or 10 in difficulty most of your candidate will fail them and you'll have no data for a decision because all 8s will fail to answer in the same way as 6s and 3s

Besides, it's a waste of their time and yours to have someone attempt a 9 or 10 before they show they can pass a 1.

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